Better Late Than Never

It took Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf a few months to get there, but on Tuesday it made a momentous decision; to try and follow due process and take the allegations against the Prime Minister to the Supreme Court. But this sudden brainwave comes after the party has already moved against the PM in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and has started a countrywide ‘Ehtesab March’. And PTI is not the only party to seek the SC’s assistance, as Jamaat-i-Islaami (JI) announced that it would file a reference against all those with their names in Panama leaks on August 22.

In this matter, PTI’s partiality to only target the Prime Minister has been made even more obvious by JI’s decision to attempt to get accountability by investigating all the accused and not just the PM, as PTI would have it. If making the country corruption-free and more accountable is the ultimate objective, why does only Nawaz Sharif feature in Imran Khan’s nightly speeches about corruption? This perfectly highlights the PTI chief’s complete detachment from the principle he claims to stand behind.

However, it is not like the ruling party has left anyone in opposition any choice, and indeed, the Prime Minister’s spokesman, Musadik Malik’s comments on a talk show all but prove this. The government was nothing if not welcoming towards this piece of news (PTI taking its fight to the courts), which begs us to ask why it wouldn’t initiate any investigation in the first place. “We also desire that justice should be done. We also desire that their movement would be peaceful,” he stated.

If the first part of this statement was true, the public would have received some answers by now, and the second part was clearly an allusion to tendencies of violence in a mass march such as this. And even though the country has all but accepted Imran Khan’s intense desire to mobilise street power time and again, it is not like the government has left any room for negotiations on any issue. The classic, ‘Imran is a loose cannon’ argument does not work, because the government did not even attempt to address this issue seriously.

Stalling tactics, and attempts to sweep the the Panama leaks debate under the rug has led the government and the opposition to an impasse. The actions of the government only allude to a guilty conscience, even though the government claims that it has nothing to hide. Merely stating this is of no value however, and if the government and the Prime Minister really want this issue to die down, the best thing would be to come clean completely, allow for impartial investigation, and move on.